Schools accept more vouchers for next year

More students will be heading to Lafourche and Terrebonne Catholic schools on vouchers this upcoming school year, according to local and state officials.

Katie UrbaszewskiStaff Writer

More students will be heading to Lafourche and Terrebonne Catholic schools on vouchers this upcoming school year, according to local and state officials.The state Department of Education released numbers that show a jump throughout the state, though it’s not too late for low-income parents of students at under-performing schools to apply for public tax money to pay private school tuition.The deadline for the second round of applications is May 24. Families who applied in the first round will automatically be considered in the second round and do not need to reapply, the Department of Education said. However, if families want to change what school they prefer on their applications, they should reapply.The same Lafourche Catholic schools that participated in the program are accepting 83 students this year, up from 65 last year, and Maria Immacolata Catholic School in Houma is accepting 23, up from 15, the state said.Most of those students were in the program last year, Catholic schools superintendent Marian Fertitta said.Maria Immacolata is the only Terrebonne Parish school participating this year. “St. Bernadette did not have room this year,” Fertitta said. “But they only had one, and that student will go on to a new school.”The rise is on track with what parish and state officials had planned, she said.“We talked about that — that we were going to start small and then expand. ... (The voucher program) was pretty shaky last year, and it still is, but I think parents and advisory councils are seeing the benefits,” Fertitta said.The state offered vouchers to about 8,000 students this year, out of about 12,000 who applied, state education officials said. That’s about 3,000 more than last year.Still, those seats represent a small portion of the 380,000 students statewide who might qualify for the voucher. Lafourche has more than 14,300 students, and Terrebonne has more than 18,500 students in their school systems.State Superintendent of Education John White has told parents to continue to apply for vouchers and schools to continue to accept them, despite a judge’s ruling that the way the program is paid for is unconstitutional. That decision is on appeal to the state Supreme Court, so that finding is not final.White “has assured us there will be funding for it,” Fertitta said. If the Supreme Court agrees the program is unconstitutionally paid for — it sends money set aside for public elementary and secondary schools to private schools — “I don’t know where it’ll come from. ... But our schools are saying, ‘Let’s go ahead, we’ll do it,’ ” Fertitta said.Department of Education officials were able to set up students with schools earlier this year, state education department spokesman Barry Landry said.“We have an earlier timeline this year. Last year, the bill was signed into law by mid-April, and we had to get students in school by August. So it was nice to be able to do things in December, January, February and March and have a little bit more time to get it done,” Landry said.Some students did drop out of the voucher program during this past school year, Fertitta and Landry said.“Those that they started with at beginning of year may not be the number they ended with,” Fertitta said of the students in the participating Catholic schools. “Some parents decided to pull the students out — not many of them. Some decided they couldn’t keep up.”Of the 4,944 vouchers awarded last year, about 4,800 or 4,900 students are still in the program, Landry said.Although there’s a second application round, those numbers in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes will likely be similar after the second round, Fertitta said. Most students in that round may take the place of students who changed their minds about attending a private school, or they may be placed in a school in a different community, she said. If you’re a student who lives in Thibodaux, it will be difficult to go to school in Raceland, for example.

Staff Writer Katie Urbaszewski can be reached at 448-7617 or katie.urbaszewski@dailycomet.com.

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